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Media Talking Points

The Syndicate is very similar to the NFL’s solution to the same problem back in the 1960’s in which NFL teams did not have adequate resources available to them to effectively scour the nations top players, so they pooled their limited resources and formed independent scouting syndicates (BLESTO & The National) to do much of the advanced work for them, before utilizing internal club management to make the final decisions on players. To this day these scouting syndicates exist and remain a very critical part of NFL clubs successes in their overall scouting process.

We are not a company that solely scouts at one level, but one that scouts at every level of US Soccer to find new talents and gain valuable looks at established players as well; each scout is trained to provide meticulous and concise documentation that points to potential new targets and/or provides detailed data on already known players to enable sound and accurate decision making.

Staff & Bios

CEO: Scott Rezendes

Scott Rezendes has spent over a decade in the professional game in a variety of leadership roles – advocating for players, managing clubs, and scouting countless matches. His grasp of the domestic player pool at all levels is comprehensive and current. He has worked extremely hard to develop and maintain tremendous relationships throughout the industry with league executives, club management, coaches at all levels, agents and athletes.

A brief summary of his professional soccer experiences:

A lifelong soccer player involved in all aspects of the game was presented with an opportunity to help launch the MLS Players Association in 2006 while completing his MBA in Sports Management at the George Washington University. During his three years at the PA, he helped open their first office, advocated daily on behalf of the players as their liaison to the MLS Player Relations department on compensation and benefits issues. He worked tirelessly to prepare players & their agents for contract negotiations with the league, audited the league’s annual player payrolls, and compiled & released the first player salary survey for the Association in 2007.

Scott then moved over to club management and took the helm as General Manager of the Wilmington Hammerheads in preparation for their 2012 season. He was instrumental in building a competitive USL Pro roster that clawed its way to the Cup Final that season, despite having one of the lowest player budgets league-wide.

After that successful season in Wilmington, Scott moved on to work for Sporting Kansas City as a domestic scout, based in Washington DC, for 4 seasons. As a team member of their broader scouting efforts, he worked aggressively to provide the club with accurate data on collegiate and lower division professional players for potential acquisition. During that time, Sporting Kansas City had a tremendous amount of success in the MLS SuperDraft, identifying and selecting key contributors to their MLS roster. That success gave the club critical depth to withstand the grind of long MLS seasons and led to an MLS Cup and US Open Cup Championship during his time there. In addition, he aided Oklahoma City Energy FC & Swope Park Rangers in preparing for their inaugural seasons with in-depth player analysis.

Scott was then hired as Technical Director of the Oklahoma City Energy in 2016 and helped guide both their USL first team and PDL U-23 to tremendous success. In 2017, the USL roster advanced to the Western Conference Finals while the U-23 roster held the best record nationally throughout all of PDL.

Director of Scouting: Matt Martin

mmartin@thesoccersyndicate.com

Matt Martin is a Retired USAF Major who as an Officer specialized in managing inspection teams, systems and process analysis, air traffic control and air space management over a 30 year career. Stationed in locations that included Colombia and Italy, Matt developed a deep appreciation for “The Beautiful Game” viewing the highest levels. In 2007, Matt, determined to take his passion to another level, enrolled in Sports Management WorldWide’s Soccer Operations and Scouting course. Upon completion he went to work for the course’s instructor, Derek Bragg, founder of The Scouting Network (TSN).

After a year as part of a large international scouting network, Matt was hired in 2008 by Jeff Agoos, then Technical Director for New York Red Bulls, to be part of a dedicated domestic scouting network spread across the US. This was one of, if not the first, such network in MLS. Over regular conference calls, the staff discussed top players scouted live and peer review allowed every scout to hear how players were performing in different regions. Regular reports were filed online and advanced scouting reports were completed via Scout7’s platform. In 2010 more guidance regarding KPIs was provided and the team assembled as a group to share draft prep with the technical staff to take advantage of the group’s knowledge. After Jeff Agoos left Red Bull for MLS Headquarters in March 2011, Matt continued his work under Cris da Silva until August 2011.

At that time, Matt seized an opportunity for professional growth and accepted a role to work for Peter Vermes at Sporting Kansas City. Peter had the vision to not only take on the information gathered by the ambitious scout, but also imbed him in the team at every turn. The result was a scout who had a more tactile understanding of recruiting profiles and needs via an extra layer of Technical Staff immersion. The coaching staff, especially John Pascarella, who led SKC’s domestic scouting efforts, provided frequent guidance and key feedback from the reports and data received. In 2012, 5 more scouts were added to fill out the Scouting Staff including Scott Rezendes. US Open Cup and MLS Cup victories followed in 2012 and 2013 (respectively) and the staff developed regular processes and comprehensive preparation for the SuperDraft, while being exposed to an inside view of one of MLS’ most successful clubs.

After 3 and 1/2 successful seasons in Kansas City, (Aug 2011- Jan 2015) Matt possessed a desire to take on a leadership role in an MLS scouting department and a more aggressive move into the Youth levels prompted his next move. Matt accepted the role of Director of Domestic Scouting for Portland Timbers FC at the start of the 2015 MLS season. Caleb Porter and Gavin Wilkinson had a shared vision that included a scouting network Matt would manage. Expanded roles included full-time work as Advanced scouts for the 2015 and 2016 seasons and youth scouting working with Mike Smith and later Larry Sunderland.

An MLS Cup victory in 2015 rewarded an entire organization and more innovation followed. Ned Grabavoy would begin a new career guiding the entire staff as Head Scout and blending the input from all levels to meet the PTFC’s vision and methodology. Gavin Wilkinson supported a multi-level scouting and recruitment model that included not only youth scouting but recruitment of talent at the USSDA U19 level directly to the Timbers 2 squad to develop as pros outside the well worn collegiate paths. Additionally, analysis was conducted on which young college players could be prompted to “come out early” and begin their pro careers before a Senior year in college.

Matt continues to work on the concept of discovering talent for every path meaning that each club should have its own mix of Homegrown Youth Academy developed players, domestic and international players developed in the college ranks, whether 4 years or less, and young pros who fit the KPIs and profiles for the club.

Link to Podcast with Matt

Our Director of Scouting, Matt Martin had the chance to sit down with Travis Clark and talk about The Soccer Syndicate and scouting in general on the Top Drawer Soccer Show podcast recently, you can give it a listen by clicking here.